Briony certainly knew about Eneas. He was another young man on whom her girlish fancies had once fixed when she had been only seven or eight. She had never actually seen him, not even a portrait, but one of the girls who watched over her had been Syannese (one of Enander’s disregarded nieces) and had told her what a kind and handsome youth Eneas was. For months Briony had dreamed that someday he would come to visit her father, take one look at her, and declare that he could have no other bride. Briony had little doubt she would look on him differently now.
They were nearing the top of the hill. The walls of the castle loomed over them like the shell of some huge ancient creature left behind by retreating tides. It was a strange day: although the weather was winter-cold, the sun was clear and sharp overhead, yet the sky just above the river valley was shrouded with thick clouds. “How long until we reach Tessis?”
Teodoros waved his hand. He was breathing heavily, unused to such exercise. “There,” he gasped.
“What do you mean?” she said, staring up at the stone walls she had thought belonged to the keep of Ardos Perinous. “Are you saying that’s Tessis?” It seemed impossible—it was far smaller than even Southmarch Castle, whose growing populace had spilled over onto the mainland centuries earlier.
“No,” said the playwright, still fighting to get his breath back. “Turn...around, fool child. Look...behind you.”
She did, and gasped. They had climbed up above the treeline and now she could see what had been blocked by the bend of the river. Only a few miles ahead the valley opened out into a bowl so wide she could not see its farthest reach. Everywhere she looked there were houses and more—walls, towers, steeples, and thousands of chimneys, the latter all puffing trails of smoke into the sky so that the entire valley lay under a pall of gray, like a fog that only began a hundred feet in the air. Channels led out from the Esterian River in all directions and crisscrossed the valley floor, the water reflecting in the late light so that the city seemed caught in a web of silver.
“Merciful Zoria,” she said quietly. “It’s huge!”
“Some say Hierosol is bigger,” Teodoros replied, wiping at his streaming forehead and cheeks. “But I think that is not true anymore.” He smiled. “I forgot, you haven’t seen Tessis before, have you?”
Briony shook her head, unable to think of anything to say. She felt very small. How could she ever have felt that Southmarch was so important—an equal sister to nations like Syan? Any thought of revealing herself to the Syannese and asking for help suddenly seemed foolish. They would laugh at her, or ignore her.
“None other like it,” Teodoros said. “‘Fair white walls on which the gods themselves did smile, and towers that stirred the clouds,’ as the poet Vanderin put it. Once the entire world was theirs.”
“It...it looks as though they still own a good share,” said Briony.
By all the gods, she thought as they rolled down the wide thoroughfare, jostled and surrounded by dozens of other wagons and hundreds of other foot travelers, Finn says this is not even the biggest street in Tessis—that Lantern Broad is twice the size—but it’s still wider across than Market Square!
She had never before in her life felt so much like—what had Finn called her that first day? “A straw-covered bumpkin just off the channel boat from Connord.” Well, she might have been annoyed at the time, but it had turned out to be a fair assessment, because here she was gaping at everything like the ripest peasant at his first fair. They were still at least a mile from the city gates—she could see the crowned guard towers looming ahead like armored giants out of legend—but they were already passing through a thriving metropolis bigger and busier than the heart of Southmarch.
“Where are we going to stay?” she asked Teodoros, who was happily ensconced in the wagon again, watching it all pass by.
“An agreeable inn just in the shadow of the eastern gate,” he called down. “We have stayed there before. I have made the arrangements for a tennight’s stay, which will give us plenty of time to smooth the wrinkles out of Zoria before we go looking for a spot closer to the center of town.”
Feival Ulian wandered back. “You know, Finn, I know the fellow who built the Zosimion Theater near Hierarch’s College Bridge. I heard that he’s having trouble finding anyone to mount some work—a feud with the Royal Master of Revels or some such. I’ll wager it’s free.”
“Good. Perhaps we shall move there after the inn.” “It might be free now...”
“No!” Teodoros seemed to realize that he’d been a bit harsh in his refusal. “No, I’ve just...I’ve made the arrangements, already, good Feival. At the inn in Chakki’s Hole. We would not get our money back.”
Feival shrugged. “Certainly. But should I see if I can find out, for later...?”
“By all means.” Teodoros smiled and nodded, as if trying to make up for his earlier loud refusal.
Briony was a little puzzled by Finn’s vehemence, but she had other things on her mind. She was merely floating, she realized—letting herself be swept along this road and through this foreign land like a leaf on a stream. In fact, she had been swept along ever since meeting the demigoddess Lisiya—only some three dozens day ago, yet already it seemed like a dream from her distant childhoold. She reached into her shirt and patted the charm Lisiya had given her, stroked the small, smooth bird skull. What should she do now? The demigoddess had only pointed her toward the players, but had told her nothing of what she should do or where she should go next. Briony suspected Lisiya wanted her to make her own decisions, that in some way she was being tested—wasn’t that what gods did to mortals?
But why? No one ever explained that curious whim. Why should the gods care whether mortals are worthy of anything? It was a bit like a person walking around in a stable, testing all the animals to see which were pure of heart or particularly clever, so they could be rewarded and the other beasts punished. She supposed people might do that to find which were the most obedient animals—was that the gods’ reasoning?
See, here I am, drifting again, she chided herself. What is Briony Eddon going to do now, that’s the question. What’s next? Before his death in the fire, Shaso had talked about raising an army, or at least enough men in arms to protect her when she revealed herself, a force to defend her from the Tollys’ treachery. He had talked of appealing to the Syannese king for troops and here she was in Syan. Most of all she wanted to go to Hierosol where her father was prisoner—she ached to see his face, to hear his voice—but she knew it was a foolish idea, that at best she would only join him in captivity. Shaso would tell her to cast her dice here, among old allies.
But would that be a good suggestion, or would it simply be Shaso, the old soldier, thinking as old soldiers did—no other way to reclaim a kingdom except by force of arms?
Thinking of the old man scalded her heart, the terrible injustice she and her brother had done him, caging him like an animal for months and months...And now he is dead. Because of me. Because of my foolishness, my headstrong mistakes, my...my... “Tim? Tim, what’s wrong?” It was Feival, his handsome face full of surprised concern. “Why are you weeping, pet?”
Briony wiped angrily at her cheeks. Could it be possible to act more like a girl? It was a good thing all the players knew her secret. “Just...just thinking of something. Of someone.”